Quick Qantas focused post before I hop on a plane and jet to Melbourne - my first trip here!
I was delirious and bleary eyed the last time I came to the airport, so the only things I saw in the international terminal were the face scanners to get you into the country. I saw them twice (refer to this post if you're confused) but they weren't really cool enough to warrant mentioning.
I knocked off work at five, after a busy, stressful, but very productive week. After my 15 minute ride in rush hour traffic to the airport (during which my cabbie asked me who I was going to vote for in the prime minister election tomorrow - did you voting is compulsory in Australia? Now you do. I actually had a whole post planned about the strangeness of being in another country during an election season and not having any of the background to decipher the press reports, but it looks like I couldn't pull it together in time to be relevant), I breezed into the domestic terminal and checked in for my flight.
To find my reservation I had a choice of using a bunch of traditional methods (card, booking number, passport) but I chose "use your name" because it was such a novel concept. Apparently with only 24 million people, airlines aren't worries about passengers with the same name traveling on the same day. I'd booked a 7:30 departure, but the computer asked me if I'd like to change my flight to the 6:30 departure. Why not? It was 5:15.
I then checked my rolling bag because I just didn't want to deal with it, so the lovely computer printed out a baggage tag, then spit out my boarding pass (after warning me my new flight might not have a catered dinner for me because I was a "late change"). I walked over to the baggage drop point, scanned my boarding pass and sent my luggage into the dark tunnel.
Security took exactly one minute (no one looked at my ID the entire time), so I was left with a lot of time to explore Sydney's Terminal 3. Qantas has a museum here, but unfortunately it was closed. I settled for trying "cheese and bacon balls" and tasting some wine. I also bought a new mini-notebook and chatted with the saleslady - we have the same wallet.
Time to board!
I was delirious and bleary eyed the last time I came to the airport, so the only things I saw in the international terminal were the face scanners to get you into the country. I saw them twice (refer to this post if you're confused) but they weren't really cool enough to warrant mentioning.
I knocked off work at five, after a busy, stressful, but very productive week. After my 15 minute ride in rush hour traffic to the airport (during which my cabbie asked me who I was going to vote for in the prime minister election tomorrow - did you voting is compulsory in Australia? Now you do. I actually had a whole post planned about the strangeness of being in another country during an election season and not having any of the background to decipher the press reports, but it looks like I couldn't pull it together in time to be relevant), I breezed into the domestic terminal and checked in for my flight.
To find my reservation I had a choice of using a bunch of traditional methods (card, booking number, passport) but I chose "use your name" because it was such a novel concept. Apparently with only 24 million people, airlines aren't worries about passengers with the same name traveling on the same day. I'd booked a 7:30 departure, but the computer asked me if I'd like to change my flight to the 6:30 departure. Why not? It was 5:15.
I then checked my rolling bag because I just didn't want to deal with it, so the lovely computer printed out a baggage tag, then spit out my boarding pass (after warning me my new flight might not have a catered dinner for me because I was a "late change"). I walked over to the baggage drop point, scanned my boarding pass and sent my luggage into the dark tunnel.
Security took exactly one minute (no one looked at my ID the entire time), so I was left with a lot of time to explore Sydney's Terminal 3. Qantas has a museum here, but unfortunately it was closed. I settled for trying "cheese and bacon balls" and tasting some wine. I also bought a new mini-notebook and chatted with the saleslady - we have the same wallet.
Time to board!
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